New Prince of Persia Photos

The Huffington Post has published these two new photos of Jake Gyllenhaal in Walt Disney Pictures' Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Gyllenhaal plays Dastan, a young prince in sixth century Persia who must join forces with Tamina (Arterton), a feisty and exotic princess, to prevent a villainous nobleman from possessing the Sands of Time, a gift from the gods that can reverse time and allow its possessor to rule the world.

Prince of Persia is being produced by powerhouse producer Jerry Bruckheimer, directed by Donnie Brasco, Mona Lisa Smile and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire helmer Mike Newell, and written by both Jeffrey Nachmanoff (The Day After Tomorrow) and one of the game's creators, Jordan Mechner. Prince of Persia stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley, and Alfred Molina. Disney has pushed the release date back all the way to May 28th, 2010.

Bruckheimer, Busiest producer in Hollywood

Back in September, Walt Disney Pictures threw a huge presentation for all their upcoming movies, which culminated in big announcements about new installments of two of the studio's biggest franchises done in collaboration with Jerry Bruckheimer Productions, Pirates of the Caribbean 4 and a third "National Treasure," as well as their intentions of reinventing The Lone Ranger. (You can read part of our report on that presentation here.)

Since the announcement, there's been a lot of rumors especially about that fourth "Pirates" movie, but earlier today, a group of journalists had some time to sit down with Jerry Bruckheimer on the set of potentially his next big Disney franchise, based on the video game Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, to get some first-hand info about these projects.

As far as getting all of these new projects off the ground, Bruckheimer joked, "That's why I can't spend a lot of time here. We have a lot of things," and mentioned some of the projects he's actively working on. "We're doing another 'National Treasure' so we're working on that, we're preparing 'Sorcerer's Apprentice' right now—it's going to be shot in New York—we have another picture that's in post-production that we're finishing called 'Confessions of a Shopaholic' with Isla Fischer and Hugh Dancy, so that comes out in February."

As far as approaching the sequels for "National Treasure" and "Pirates of the Caribbean," Bruckheimer says that both are having scripts written. "We've sat with the writers and we're working up the story and plotlines right now. They're in the process of finishing 'The Lone Ranger' so they're working on both of those simultaneously, same set of writers, Elliot and Rossio, who did all three 'Pirates' and worked on 'National Treasure (2)'"

When asked whether they might consider gearing another "Pirates" movie to IMAX, based on the success Warner Bros. had with The Dark Knight, Bruckheimer responded, "Absolutely. I'd love to do it, so let's just see if we can work it through the production schedule with everything else."

Prince of Persia Shooting in Morocco

An update from Variety today mentions that director Mike Newell has scouted out Morocco as the location to primarily shoot the upcoming video game adaptation Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. That's it, yep, that's the entire update regarding Prince of Persia. Although I'm guessing a cast has already been set, or at least is very close to being finalized, nothing else besides the director has still been announced. Due out next June, Prince of Persia is set to start filming in Morocco this June, as long as the SAG doesn't strike.

The film is being produced by powerhouse Disney producer Jerry Bruckheimer, directed by Donnie Brasco, Mona Lisa Smile and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire helmer Mike Newell, and written by both Jeffrey Nachmanoff (The Day After Tomorrow) and one of the game's creators, Jordan Mechner. In addition to shooting in Morocco, the film will be using the Pinewood Shepperton studios in England. Considering the line-up involved, we can expect a big budget and great production values set within a warmer version of The Day After Tomorrow combined with the action and pacing of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Sound any good to you? I like everything but that The Day After Tomorrow reference.

You can read a great update on the status from Jerry Bruckheimer back in early December, who also shares his story of how he was first introduced to the video game and how they plan to be the first to break the bad video game movie mold. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is currently set to arrive in theaters next summer on June 19th, 2009. We'll be sure to bring you more updates as we hear them.

The last good topic of discussion is who would be the best actors to take on the roles of the Prince and Princess Farah? Any actors to mull over while we wait for the official casting announcements?

SOURCE: FirstShowing